


The Cost of Victory

by IcyPheonix



Series: Aftermath [1]
Category: Yu-Gi-Oh! ARC-V
Genre: Character Death, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Post-Canon, Tragedy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-04
Updated: 2016-12-04
Packaged: 2018-09-06 08:16:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,364
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8742058
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/IcyPheonix/pseuds/IcyPheonix
Summary: The war is over and the dimensions are saved, but victory has come with a cost, one that none of the Lancers expected to pay.The life of one of their own.No one was prepared for that.





	

For the first time in a while, silence reigned in Duel Academy, the sounds of a long and weary fight having since died out. Half the building lay in ruin, spilling out and onto the main courtyard.

Yuto groaned in pain, rubbing the back of his neck as he sat up. He paused, eyes snapping open as he looked down at his hands, _his hands_ ; these were his hands, not Yuya’s hands, but his!

The joy was short lived as he quickly looked around, if he was back in his own body, where was Yuya? Was he alright, or had something happened to him?

The last thing he remembered was trying to fight off the darkness that threatened to swallow him, and failing, and Yuya, he remembered Yuya screaming.

“Yuya, Yuya!”

He stumbled as he hauled himself to his feet, legs shaking like jelly as he walked, unused to using his own limbs. Spotting a familiar red and green shape he ambled over to him, dropping to his knees beside Yuya.

“Yuya!” Yuya moaned as Yuto rolled him over onto his back, cracking an eye open as he looked up at Yuto.

“Yu...to, you, have your body back,” he said, voice strained as he spoke and barely above a whisper, a weak smile cracking his lips.

Yuto forced a smile as he put his arms under Yuya, carefully lifting him up. Although his injuries were merely superficial, nothing more than scrapes and bruises, he looked in poor shape He was shaking as if he were cold and he seemed paler than usual. And his skin, Yuto shivered as his fingers bushed over Yuya’s skin, it felt cold to the touch.

“I’m so tired Yuto.”

Yuto’s smile faltered and he looked around, Yuya was in bad shape and he needed help.

“Just, just rest ok? Don’t push yourself, you’ve been through a lot.”

“Ok.”

Yuto’s breath caught in his throat as he scanned the area, they were somewhere outside Academia, and pretty much alone.

“You there!” he yelled, catching sight of a pair of students in red uniforms. “Yes you! Find Sakaki Yusho, and bring him here now!” They jumped in surprise at being addressed; startled that someone would talk to them. They nodded quickly before darting off as ordered.

He wasn’t sure what was wrong with Yuya, he looked exhausted and weak, and it worried him. “It’ll be ok Yuya, it’ll be ok.”

‘ _Yusho, please hurry._ ’

The telltale sound of a cane tapping on the ground, followed by footsteps, sounded behind Yuto and he looked over his shoulder to see Yusho heading his way, supported by several uniformed students.

“Mr. Sakaki!”

The older man waved off the students, limping over to Yuto and kneeling down. “Yuya!”

“D-dad?” Yuya tilted his head, trying to look up at his father, eyes lighting up at the sight of his father.

“It’s alright Yuya, I’m here,” he said gently, smoothing Yuya’s hair from his face as he took Yuya from Yuto, cradling him in his arms, one arm hooked around Yuya’s shoulders as he lay his son across his lap. In Yusho’s arms, Yuya looked impossibly small and fragile.

Yuya smiled weakly at him, “Dad, you’re, ok.”

Yusho smiled warmly at him, tears springing into his eyes. “Yuya, you did it, you won. Everyone’s safe. I saw them Yuya, everyone who was turned into cards they’re normal again. You saved everyone.” He held Yuya close, “I’m proud of you son, I’m so proud of you.”

Yuya’s hand found its way into his father’s, head leaning against his chest weakly. His breathing had become laboured; heavy and coming in short bursts. “D-dad…”

“You can stop fighting now Yuya,” he said softly, tears misting in his eyes and threatening to spill over as he looked down at his son. “Just rest now, just rest.”

With a sigh, Yuya’s eyes drifted closed as his whole body relaxed, hand slipping out of Yusho’s and falling to his side limply.

 

As leader of the Lancers, it was up to Reiji to make sure everyone was accounted for. Yuya, Yuto, and now Yusho, were nowhere to be seen.

He had seen Yusho among the rest of the group, until he was whisked away by a pair of Academia students, and before Reiji could callout or follow, his attention was dragged off to someone else needing his help.

Adjusting a sleeping Reira in his arms, he headed off in the direction he’d last seen him headed, perhaps he would find Yuya and Yuto as well. He was going to make sure everyone got back home, everyone.

When he found Yusho, he was kneeling on the ground, shoulders shaking, and it wasn’t until he drew nearer that he heard it, crying.

Yuto sat across from Yusho; his face in his hand as he trembled with sobs, tears trickling between his fingers.

A sickening pit forming in his stomach, Reiji looked back to Yusho and what he was holding. The tuft of red and green hair, the familiar bright coloured shoes, he didn’t need to see anymore to know that it was Yuya.

“Sakaki sir?”

Yusho lifted his head, but didn’t turn to look at him. “We were too late.”

“Shall I, tell everyone else then? To, prepare them?”

Yusho nodded, “That would be best.”

“I’ll, let you be then,” said Reiji, giving him a polite nod before turning slowly to go back.

When he’d left them, everyone seemed to be happy, or as happy as they could be given the circumstances.

Yuzu was sitting with Selena, who was repeatedly apologizing for what she’d done, though Yuzu wouldn’t have it. Rin was fussing over Yugo, while Shun was being fussed over by his sister. Sora seemed oblivious to that, and pretty much everything else around him, propping himself up against Shun’s back and both parties were battered and bruised.

Gongenzaka was having his injuries tended to by a finicky Sawatari and Jack expressed his delight at seeing Crow and his disappointment that he’d let himself get carded. Kaito had been hugging a small, blue-haired boy that Reiji assumed was his brother, while Tsukikage had been reunited with his own brother, and Asuka and Ed were making sure everyone, Lancers and students alike, were ok.

And he was going to have to shatter that peace with what he had to say. It was a message he’d hoped to never have to deliver.

The only saving grace was that Reira was asleep, passed out from exhaustion and excitement. He didn’t want to explain this to him, not yet.

Several heads turned at the sound of his return and he cleared his throat, steeling himself. He had to keep face; he couldn’t break now, not here. He had to hold back his emotions and tears; he was the leader of the Lancers, the CEO of a company, he could do this, he had to.

“I,” his voice cracked as a lump formed in his throat. Reiji swallowed and tried again, “I-there is no easy way to say this, and I wish I didn’t have to,” he said. “Sakaki Yuya is dead.”

 

For a few tense moments everything was silent as everyone stared at him, a pin could have been heard dropping on the other side of the courtyard.

“If this is a joke it’s not very funny,” said Sora, now very much alert to his surroundings.

Reiji clenched his jaw, “I would not joke about something like this Shiunin,” he said.

Sora trembled and shook his head, “You-you’re lying, you have to be, Yuya can’t be…” He trailed off as he caught sight of Yusho ambling towards them. The only thing keeping him on his feet was the combined support of Yuto and several Osiris red students, as he wasn’t using his cane.

Sora’s breath caught in his throat when he saw why it was he wasn’t using his cane, he was carrying someone, someone with red and green hair. As Yusho neared them it became clear that he had been crying, tear tracks glistening on his cheeks. Slipping out of his aid’s grip, he knelt down, carefully placing an unmoving Yuya on the ground.

“Yuya!” Sora screeched, leaping to his feet and ran towards him, or he tried, his legs shook and he collapsed several times in a matter of steps.

“No! Yuya!” Yuzu pulled away from Selena and rushed to Yuya’s side, dropping to her knees beside him. “Please no.” She touched a trembling hand to his cheek, hoping for some kind of response.

“I’m sorry Yuzu,” said Yuto, reaching across and placing his hand on hers. “He’s gone. The strain on his body from the fight, it was to much for him.”

Yuzu trembled before collapsing against Yuya’s chest and sobbing, fingers gripping his shirt tightly.

“Yuya! Wake up, wake up Yuya please. You have to wake up! You have to…” Yuzu trailed off into a sob as she buried her face in Yuya’s chest.

Yusho’s eyes softened and he placed a hand gently on her head soothingly. “Oh Yuzu, I’m sorry.”

There was a soft thump as Sora dropped to his knees beside Yuzu, silent tears clinging to the corner of his eyes.

“Who’s gonna tell his mom?” he asked after a moment.

A pained look crossed Yusho’s face, of all the people to inform about this, that was going to be the hardest. “I will,” he said. “It is better if she hears it from me.”

Reiji nodded, turning away so he didn’t have to look at the scene before him, or else he wouldn’t be able to hold himself together. And so no one would see the tears that had forced themselves free and down his cheeks.

“Then we should get home,” he said.

 

* * *

 

 

The last thing Yoko expected when she answered the door was a ninja. But, when she answered the door in the late afternoon that was exactly what she found, or rather who she found.

It took her a few moments to place the individual, but when she did it came rushing back to her, the Maiami Championship, he had been among the winners, among the Lancers.

“Mrs. Sakaki,” the blue clad ninja gave a polite nod in her direction.

“Tsukikage was it?” she asked. “If you’re here, does that mean that, everyone else is…?”

Tsukikage nodded, “We returned a short while ago. I have been asked to take you to the Maiami City hospital right away, if you could come with me.”

“The-the hospital?”

“It is, simply standard procedure,” he said. “We had a few wounded. Please, come with me Mrs. Sakaki. It is, important.”

“Is Yuya alright?” she asked, worry rising in her throat.

“Please just, follow me.”

Never had the walk to the hospital felt longer and more nerve wracking for Yoko, and Tsukikage answering her questions with nothing more than ‘Come with me’ didn’t help matters.

Upon entering the hospital she made a beeline for Akaba Reiji, if her escort wouldn’t tell her anything then perhaps his employer would.

“Ah, Mrs. Sakaki, I am glad to see you made it,” he said as she approached him.

“Were is my son, why was I brought here?” she asked.

For a moment he stiffened and quickly adjusted his glasses. “It was merely a precautionary measure, some of our number were injured and I thought it best if they were examined and treated by a doctor first. Your husband being among them.”

“Yusho? You found my husband?” she asked, eyes lighting up at the mention of her three years missing husband.

Reiji nodded, “If you will come with me, he is waiting to see you.”

Without waiting for an answer, he turned and headed down the hall, Yoko soon following behind him.

 

Yusho was having his knee examined when Yoko walked in, and his face lit up at the sight of his wife.

“Yoko!”

She gasped softly, covering her mouth with her hands as she stared at him, tears of joy welling in her eyes.

“You’re back, you’re really home,” she said. “I can’t believe it.”

The nurse tending to his leg glanced between them before stepping aside. “I’ll give you two some time,” she said, before leaving the room. “Just don’t put to much weight on the leg.”

Grabbing his cane, Yusho limped over to his wife, embracing her tightly.

“Oh Yoko, it feels like a lifetime,” he said.

“I never stopped believing that you’d come back,” she said, wrapping her arms around him as she returned the gestured. “But, where is Yuya? No one will tell me anything, and I don’t see him here either. Where’s our son?”

The cheerful look on his face dropped and he bowed his head, hands trembling as he held her. “Yoko…”

Reiji was halfway down the hall, when a wail of anguish filled the air, a cry he was sure everyone in the hospital had heard. In that moment he knew, she’d been delivered the bad news.

 

_This is all your fault! If it wasn’t for you, Yuya would still be alive! My son is dead because of you!_

 

Yoko gripped her husband’s hand tightly as the morgue attendant pulled back the sheet covering Yuya’s body. She shook her head as tears blurred her vision and Yusho hooked an arm around her to keep her from collapsing.

“No, no this can’t be happening, he can’t be gone.”

Yuya looked so peaceful and serene as he lay there, as if he were merely asleep and not dead. Dark, ugly bruises stood out against his ghostly pale skin, the only indication he’d been in any kind of fight.

“How could this happen?” she sobbed. “Oh, Yuya.” She reached a hand out, gently touching the side of his face, before turning and burying her face into her husband’s chest as she sobbed even louder.

Yusho gestured to the attendant that they were done, Yoko had seen enough. With a silent nod, they covered him back up before silently excusing themselves from the room to give the pair a moment.

 

Of all the things Yoko expected to hear that day when she got up, the news that her son had died was not among them.

**Author's Note:**

> I've been planning this one for a bit, and finally said 'to heck with it' and decided to actually write it.
> 
> The 'series' is going to be a string of interconnected stories, each one focusing on a different character(or characters) dealing with Yuya's death, with some tying/leading into the next. 
> 
> My planned order is Yoko and Yusho, Yuzu and Sora, Reiji, Yuto, Sawatari and Gongenzaka, Crow, Yugo, potentially other characters here, the funeral itself, Yuri, Epilogue/final bit to wrap everything together. This isn't set in stone though, the order may get switched about and characters/pieces might get added in.


End file.
